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Do Palestinians Have the Right to be Angry?
Imagine being in a room surrounded by people that you wouldn’t exactly call your friends.
Then again you’re the person that seems to start the fights and conflicts. That is Israel, a
country in the Middle East founded in 1948, amongst the Palestine residence. Many
believe Palestine should be recognized as a sovereign state but powerful forces such as the
U.S. say otherwise, making this controversially an international topic in the middle east.
Early into Israel’s establishment it almost immediately went to war with neighboring Arab
countries who did not recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish nation. This was known as
1948 Arab–Israeli War.
In early May, 1948, the Jordan Legion, Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi armies were engaged
into the fight with their Palestinian Arabic brothers. Israel was greatly outnumbered by the
Arab forces but Israel is well trained, funded and equipped, compared to the poorly
equipped, inexperienced, unorganized Arab military. Israel expanded and, pushed borders
by destroying Arab villages; further reduced the Palestinian population. By January, 1949,
an armistice had been signed, and Israel found itself inhabiting sizable new chunks of
territory. (As seen in the map on page 4.)
These territories today are seen to originally belong to the Palestinians. Many Palestinians
still have the deeds to the houses they left behind. Some even keep the keys to their
houses, even though half a century has passed and the houses are probably gone now. The
Palestinians claim a legal basis for the “Right of Return” the 1948 United Nations
Resolution 194, which states that Palestinian “refugees wishing to return to their homes
and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest
practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing
not to return,” as quoted by Ami Isseroff on the MidEastWeb Gateway Web site. Most
Israelis, both those who favor peaceful negotiations with the Palestinians and those who
favor military solutions, deny the Palestinian concept of right of return they were banned
to act on the U.N. resolution. Reason being for this, Arabs greatly outnumber Jews in the
region, so this put the Israeli on edge. Hence if the Palestinian people were to return the
Jews in the Jewish country would be outnumbered then the Israeli dream of a Jewish state
would be lost.
By the 1960s, the scattered Palestinians began to form structures to represent themselves.
